'should your kids get an allowance?'

i recently found an article on giving kids an allowance. they had some things that seemed reasonable to me and even correspond with what i recieve, but they also reccomended/mentioned things i disagree with.

they say that kids as young as four are capable of handling an allowance, albeit a small one. i agree with that, but they also say "children at this age tend to lose or misplace money. That's OK. It's all part of the learning process. If your son is playing with a few quarters and loses them, he won't have the money to buy baseball cards or a pack of gum."

pshaw. if it's a small amount of money, you can easily replace it. in this way, the child can learn kindness and generousity instead of what will appear to him as greed. 'no, this is my money, you can't have any'. faced with a similar situation on a more serious level when he is an adult, he might subconciously remember this and refuse to give money to someone. if you send him the message of 'when someone needs help, do what you can to be kind', he might remember this instead, and in my opinion, that is a much better message.

the person writing this article goes on to describe different age groups and how much money they should get. following the 'Preschool' group is Elementary, from about to five to eight. "By 5 or 6, most children can understand the differences between spending, short-term savings, long-term savings and donating." IF your child can, and there is no guarantee of this, they will often not know how much to put in each category. most children this age get a small allowance, so they are likely to put most or all into the 'spending' category. i doubt any will be put in the 'donation' category. however, the article says "you may require that a certain amount of your child's allowance be...donated to charity". i strongly disapprove of this. i believe that everything you do around or to your kids sends a message to them about how to behave. forcing them to donate part of their money will just destroy what giving to charity is all about. it's about being generous and helping others. if you're forced to be generous you'll just be less generous in later years.

after the 5-8 range we come to what most people call 'Tweens', kids between the ages of 9 and 12, who are not quite teenagers. the article says "Some tweens are ready to take on the challenge of purchasing their own wardrobes and paying for all of their entertainment expenses." with a strong implication throughout the entire article that if they use up all of their money they won't have any more. it also says something that vexes me. "Many tweens...will need constant supervision and guidance. That's not to say that parents should stop them from making mistakes...allowance is a tool for learning good money-management principles. One of the best ways to learn is by making mistakes and dealing with the consequences of those errors."

what?

what?

That's not to say that parents should stop them from making mistakes

but that's so idiotic! if you tell them that what they are doing is a mistake, they will then learn that just as well as if they had been allowed to make a mistake. except they'll still have money.

does anybody see a bad side to this?

the 'Teens' section reccomends that older kids be given a "clothing allowance", with which they would have to buy all of their own clothes. i somewhat agree with this. it gives kids the freedom to choose what clothes they buy, instead of having to ask their parents for everything. but then they have to go and ruin it by imposing that 'even if you spend all your money, we won't give you a penny extra.' thing on it. the exact wording is this "when the money is gone, don't offer more -- even if he's forgotten to budget for a new winter coat and needs to wear his old one, which is ever so snug and showing its wear."

argh!

Chloe